Aanuoluwapo Omoleye, a 22 year old graduate of Economics at the University of Ibadan, Oyo State has bagged first class despite the fact that she doesn’t have the ability to hear from both ears.
Aanuoluwapo didn’t just bagged first class but was also awarded as the best graduating student in her department.
She narrated how she lost her sense of hearing. Just like every other child had those ‘rough plays’, she also had hers.
She mentioned how she was playing one day, during her childhood and she found some pieces of beads and stuck it in her nose but luckily for her, she sneezed it out.
Later on she stuck the beads in her ears and just like that, it got stuck there.
In her words:
” Children do all sorts of things and I was not any different. I was playing in the house one morning when I saw some beads in the drawer. I imagined that one of the beads would fit perfectly into any of my orifices. I first inserted one of the beads in my nose but sneezed it out immediately. Then, I tried inserting it in my left ear canal and boom, it got stuck. I tried to remove it myself by every means possible – by patting, using cotton buds, broomsticks, water, etc – but all proved abortive. Later that evening, my parents came back from work and I reported to mum that ‘something’ was in my ear.
That was the beginning of it all. My family tried to remove the bead that had got into my left ear but they could not. Even the private clinic I was taken to had to refer me to the teaching hospital where I was scheduled to have it removed on a Wednesday. I was given anesthesia and when I woke up, I became extremely sick and my left ear was bleeding.
Apparently, an error in the removal procedure had perforated my left eardrum and got it damaged. I was extremely ill for many days and had lost my sense of balance. However, I still had my hearing for the first two days.
How did the problem affect your ability to hear?
Disaster struck when I woke up in the morning to realise I couldn’t hear anything in both ears. It felt like a joke until my mum screamed and ran out of the house. We went back to the hospital and were given different instructions. I lost hearing in both ears instead of one. When I got better, I went back to the regular school I was attending before later starting a new life at a special school for the deaf. I still very much remember my last day at school and how my classmates and my nun-teacher sang. I left in Primary 3.”
Here’s what this disability has thought her as well as an advice she would give to every other disabled person.
” Being different doesn’t mean being lesser. Life only happens and it goes on. People see things differently and it is on you to live for yourself and be at your best.”
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